Resale activity is 9.7% above the 4.53 million-unit level of one-year ago April 2012. Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors® chief economist, said the market is solidly recovering. “The robust housing market recovery is occurring in spite of tight access to credit and limited inventory. Without these frictions, existing-home sales easily would be well above the 5-million unit pace,” he said. “Buyer traffic is 31% stronger than a year ago, but sales are running only about 10% higher.” Existing-home sales are at the highest pace since November 2009 when the market spiked to 5.44 million in response to the home buyer tax credit.